While it’s necessary to discipline children at times, some schools have taken it a step too far.

A recent trend has popped up across the country in placing children in an unthinkable place, and trapping them there.

And even worse, teachers are able to lock up children against their will in this place, without parental consent.

You might ask where are teachers locking up children, and how is it legal?

The thought alone is too crazy to comprehend, but it is happening.

In some states, if children misbehave, they are placed inside makeshift “seclusion rooms”.

These seclusion rooms are often old storage spaces, and tiny padded boxes.

They are dark and children are left trapped inside an isolated room.

If a child becomes too much for a teacher to handle, teachers have the authority and green light to throw children in these rooms and keep them there until they decide to let them out.

Café Mom reports:

“Iowa, along with Arkansas, Illinois, Montana, and New York, allow teachers the option to seclude students as punishment even when the children pose no threat of physical danger to themselves or other people.

In order to carry out these punishments, some Iowa schools have seclusion rooms. In some schools they’re repurposed storage spaces.

In others they’re roughly six feet by six feet padded pine boxes that look like something you’d find in a episode of American Horror Story, not an elementary school.”

Currently, parents have to be notified if their child is placed in a “seclusion room”, but regardless if parents give their consent or not, teachers are still able to lock up children anyways.

This means, even if a parent objects, the teacher still has the “right” to lock children in these rooms.

It’s one thing to set boundaries and keep a classroom in order, but it’s an entirely different thing to place a child in solitary confinement, all because a teacher can’t control the classroom.

Even more terrifying, teachers are using this technique on very young children.

Café Mom continues:

“The Iowa Department of Education looked into the Iowa City School District’s practice of using seclusion rooms after a complaint was filed earlier this year.

This isn’t the case where teachers are afraid that big burly teenagers might take a swing and want them to cool off before they do something they’ll regret.

The investigators found that out of 455 situations where a seclusion room was used, most of the children being put in those rooms were in kindergarten through the third grade.

And while many of us still stick to the well-known guideline of one minute per year of age time-out at home, the average time a child spent locked in the room was between 20 and 29 minutes.

If that doesn’t make your heart ache, get ready for this — 30 of the children were kept inside for over 50 minutes.”

Seclusion boxes are not the solution to discipline children.

The emotional trauma these children endure when placed in these tiny boxes is immeasurable.

Certainly, small children won’t be able to comprehend what is happening, and may grow to resent and distrust authority figures.

And rightfully so.

Teachers are there to teach and instruct children how to develop healthy boundaries.

It’s important educators teach the difference between committing an act of disobedience, and telling a child they are “bad”.

Even worse, this cruel act of punishment isn’t going to stop kids from being kids.

If teachers can’t handle children in a classroom, perhaps they shouldn’t be teaching at all.

Do you think teachers should be allowed to shove children into so-called “seclusion boxes” as punishment?

How would you respond if you found out your child was placed in a seclusion box, even if you objected?